An image authentically shows a coyote standing on its hind legs and pressing a crosswalk signaling button before crossing a road.
In July and August 2026, people posted a brief video as a Facebook reel and YouTube short allegedly featuring an authentic photo of a coyote standing on its hind legs and pressing a crosswalk signaling button before crossing a road.
The short video shared a story with the image claiming a wildlife camera installed along state Route 87 captured the picture outside Payson, Arizona. A sign reading “White Canyon Trailhead” appeared in the background of the image.
For example, on July 3, the Moonlit Sentences Facebook page posted (archived) the video. The Moonlit Sentences YouTube channel hosted (archived) the clip, as well.
The story claimed the coyote crossed in the crosswalk on 147 occasions, never once forgetting to press the button to signal traffic to stop:
Arizona DOT installed a wildlife camera at Route 87’s pedestrian crossing outside Payson last September. Standard deer migration count. After six months, they had footage of zero deer and 147 clips of the same coyote pressing the crosswalk button with its paw at sunrise. The animal waits for the walk signal. Steps into the road. Crosses at a trot. Every single time. Biologists believe it learned by watching hikers at the adjacent trailhead. “It’s not random,” said the lead researcher. “That coyote understands cause and effect better than half our interns.” DOT voted unanimously to keep the camera running. The coyote hasn’t jaywalked once.
Another Facebook user shared a video (archived) with the image mirrored horizontally above a similar story.
One Snopes reader emailed, “Did this really happen?”
In sum, a quick investigation found the image was fake and the rumor was false. Someone used an artificial-intelligence tool to create the image, as well as possibly to write the fabricated story.
Searches of Bing, DuckDuckGo and Google found no shortage of alleged images and videos appearing to show coyotes crossing in or near crosswalks, including in Arizona. However, none of those posts showed a coyote standing on its hind legs to press a crosswalk button. Those same searches failed to locate any news media outlets, wildlife blogs or other authoritative sources reporting about the image and story users shared in the in-question videos.
We emailed a user who manages what appeared to be the originating YouTube channel to ask about the clip, as well as to inquire about the AI tools used in the creation process. We also reached out to Moonlit Sentences via Messenger to request comment and will update this article if we receive further information.
Digging into the rumor
A reverse image search located the apparent source of the AI-generated image and made-up story on the Warm Heart Chronicles YouTube channel, posted July 2, 2026, with the title “COYOTE USES CROSSWALK BUTTON EVERY MORNING AT DAWN.”
The Warm Hearts Chronicles channel hosts many other YouTube shorts in the same format, with an AI-generated image in the top half of the video and a fabricated story in text below. For example, videos told made-up stories about a cat sneaking into a courtroom and cozying up next to a judge’s gavel, as well as an escaped emu shutting down a Burger King drive-thru. Reverse image searches for numerous images appearing in Warm Heart Chronicles’ other videos found no matches, suggesting someone used an AI tool to create brand-new, inauthentic content.
Google Maps searches confirmed no “White Canyon Trailhead” is situated near the town of Payson, as the story claimed. One search showed the White Canyon Wilderness is two hours from Payson by car, while another search found the White Rock Canyon Trailhead is about a five-hour drive.
Past plans for a wildlife safety project may have served as inspiration for the AI tool used to write the coyote story. In 2007, The Associated Press reported about an “experimental electronic ‘crosswalk'” — with the word “crosswalk” surrounded by quotation marks — designed to “keep Arizona’s animals and drivers safe.” The project involved wildlife underpasses allowing animals to cross under roads, not traditional crosswalks at street level.
For further reading, we previously investigated another image allegedly showing a person giving a coyote a bath after mistaking the animal for a dog.
